The Story of Donehogawa (Ely Parker) – The First Indian Commissioner of Indian Affairs

In a often copied painting of the surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox there is General Grant and General Lee sitting at their desks and in the background is a half dozen or more Union officers lining the wall and looking on. I noted that one of these Union officers is clearly an Indian. Who is he and what is he doing here?

The answer to my question turns out to be a most interesting story. The man pictured is a Seneca Iroquois; Donehogawa, Keeper of the Western Door of the Long House of the Iroquois. He was born and raised on the Tonawanda reservation in New York and known as a boy by the name, Hasanoanda of the Seneca. Ambition caused Hasanoanda to change his name to Ely Parker as he realized that whites would not take him seriously with an Anglo name.


In his youth, working as a stable boy at an Army post, he endured racism and harassment over his poor command of the English language. He enrolled himself at a missionary school where he developed an excellent command of language and began working for a New York law firm where his goal was to become a lawyer, which he thought was the most suitable profession in which he could help his people. After a successful three years with the law firm he applied for admission to the bar. He was refused. Indians need not apply. This did not dampen Donehogawa’s determination. He researched what white profession he could pursue without encountering a closed door and found engineering the way to go. He entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and not only mastered but excelled at all courses in civil engineering. His first job was working on the Erie Canal. By the time he was 29 the United States government enlisted him to supervise the construction of levees and buildings. In 1860 he found himself working in Galena, Illinois where he met and became friends with a disgraced and former Army captain by the name of Ulysses S. Grant.

In 1861 when the Civil War began, Ely Parker returned to New York to raise a regiment of Iroquois Indians to fight for the Union but was turned down by the Governor. Parker then unsuccessfully tried to enter the Union as an engineer and was again refused because of his race. He was told this was a “white man’s war” and “go home, cultivate your farm, and we will settle our troubles without any Indian aid.”

The government refusals did not stop Parker, he let his friend, U.S. Grant know of the denials. Grant sorely needed engineers and after episodes of red tape with the Union Army, Grant sent orders for his Indian friend to join him in the Vicksburg campaign. Lieutenant Colonel Ely Samuel Parker would remain a close aid to Grant through the Vicksburg campaign, Chattanooga, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, the siege of Petersburg, and finally at Appomattox.

The painting that I previously mentioned of the peace being made at Appomattox in which there was a line of Union officers over-seeing the writing and signing of the peace terms of the bloodiest war ever waged in the western hemisphere (620,000 killed – more than all the other wars fought by this country combined,) were Orville Babcock, Phil Sheridan, Seth Williams, John Rawlins, Horace Porter, and Ely Parker.

When General Grant finished the hand written surrender document he said, “When I put my pen to the paper I did not know the first word that I should make use of in writing the terms. I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly, so that there could be no mistaking it.”

Grant then called his senior adjutant to copy the letter but he said, “too nervous.” Grant then “called Colonel Parker…to his side and looked it over with him and directed him as they went along to interline six or seven words and to strike the word ‘their’ which had been repeated …he handed the book to General Lee and asked him to read over the letter.” Parkers excellent hand writing spelled out the terms of peace.

After all was said, signed, and agreed upon, there was a hand shaking ceremony. As Lee was going down the line and greeting the Union officers, he came to the Indian, Colonel Parker and hesitated. Parker said, “After Lee had stared at me for a moment, he extended his hand and said, ‘I am glad to see one real American here.’ I shook his hand and said, ‘We are all Americans.”




Jumping ahead to the late 1860’s – Red Cloud’s Dakota warriors had won a war with the whites. The second greatest defeat to any American army came at the hands of Dakota and Cheyenne’s at Fort Kearney where they wiped out an entire unit of 81 men led by Captain Fetterman. Crazy Horse had led and designed the ambush. The Powder River forts along the Bozeman trail were burned by the Indians and Red Cloud signed a treaty in which he was told that he and his people could stay and hunt the Powder River country rather than move to a reservation far to the east on the Missouri River where game was scarce. The whites said they’d stay out of the Dakota lands and let them be at peace.

Red Cloud began to hear rumors that he’d have to go the Missouri River to trade and that eventually they too would have to permanently move too. Red Cloud began to suspect the obvious, that being that he was not told all that the white man’s pen had written on the paper that he touched his pen to. Corresponding to approximate same period of time, a massacre of an undefended Blackfoot village took place. A report of the facts as they relate to this massacre was submitted by a young officer, Lt. William Pease, jeopardizing his own career in doing so. This report went to the new commissioner, Ely Parker. Parker demanded an immediate investigation by government authorities.

When Grant was elected a President, he chose Parker to be his head of Indian Affairs, believing that an Indian could do a better job than a white. Parker cleaned house of the entrenched, corrupt bureaucrats holding offices in the Indian Affairs offices. Religious institutions were solicited for new agents and many Quakers stepped forward, so many that the new plan became known as the “Quaker policy” or the “peace policy.” Donehogawa also appointed a citizens watch dog group, made up of both whites and Indians, to over see the Bureau of Indian Affairs but no Indians with political pull could be found so it became all whites.

Parker knew that war would break out again if he did not act. He sent word to Red Cloud that he wished him to come to Washington if Red Cloud so wished. There was no demand, only a suggestion to Red Cloud which proved a very sagacious manner in which Parker handled the situation in which to get the great Dakota chief to Washington. A special military escort was provided for the several dozen Indians making the trip. When in Washington, Parker did not act as someone telling the Indians what was to be; rather he asked to hear to hear what they had to say of themselves.

After a tour of Washington and all its extraordinary sites, Parker asked them to pose for the famous photographer, Matthew Brady. He recognized that the Indians were uncomfortable in the white man’s clothing they were wearing and suggested that they put on their native dress for both the photo session and dinner at the White House with President Grant.

Ely Parker was in an extremely tough spot to be, between representing the desires of Red Cloud and his people and a bunch of politicians who firmly believe in Manifest Destiny – the notion that white people and their way of life were ordained by God to take all the Red Man’s land and that the Indian was doomed to extinction. He knew that Red Cloud had been deceived. He knew that the Fort Laramie treaty that Red Cloud had signed had not been fully read or explained to Red Cloud. Ely Parker met with the President that night and came up with a partial solution for the Dakota. Although the treaty stated that the hunting grounds were outside the Reservation, and the reservation was where they had to reside, Parker and Grant conceded that Red Cloud and his people could live and hunt on their beloved Powder River country. Red Cloud had won again but his time, instead of Crazy Horse or another Dakota warrior at his side; it was an Iroquois warrior,
Donehongawa.

While in New York, Red Cloud spoke to a large audience at the Cooper Institute and got a rousing ovation. “For the first time he had an opportunity to talk to the people instead of government officials.” Red Cloud spoke, “We want to keep peace, will you help us? In 1868 men came out and brought papers. We could not read them, and they did not tell us truly what was in them. We thought the treaty was to remove the forts, and that we should cease from fighting. But they wanted to send us traders on the Missouri. We did not want to go to the Missouri, but wanted traders where we were. When I reached Washington the Great Father explained to me what the treaty was, and showed me that the interpreters had deceived me. All I want is right and just. I have tried to get from the Great Father what is right and just. I have not altogether succeeded.”

When Red Cloud returned home with a partial victory he found that things had not changed in the west. The same developers, ranchers, and land seekers were vigorously opposing the Dakota occupation on these rich and desirable lands.

Things for Ely Parker took a turn for the worse after Red Cloud’s departure. Mining interests turned on him for his opposition to a mining venture known as the Bighorn Mining Expedition and his reforms had created powerful enemies of the Indian Bureau as a cash cow.

In 1870 an attempt was made by Parker’s enemies to withhold food and annuity payments to the Indians and in result, embarrass him. Parker tried to circumvent this ploy by payment for these necessities in credit which in doing so, was used by his enemies to portray it as a scandal.

A legislative committee was established to investigate Parker and his re-structured Bureau of Indian Affairs but no wrong doing could be found. Parker considered what to do next. He decided to resign as his continuing as chief of Indian Affairs would be crippled and he would be an embarrassment to his close friend President Grant.

When Parker left office, he went to New York and made a fortune. He lived out the rest of his life removed from the corrupt political affairs of Washington, unable to deal anymore with the bigotry of the white ruling class.

“The whites told only one side. Told it to please themselves. Told much that is not true. Only his own best deeds, only the worst deeds of the Indians, has the white man told.” Yellow Wolf of the Nez Perce

The material for this essay came from:

To Appomattox - Burke Davis
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - Dee Brown
Crossroads of Freedom-Antietam - James McPherson